Here at MJD we actively encourage our clients to take warranties with a new device and to extend warranties on devices which are due to expire, which are still performing as required and are critical machines to the running of your business.  While you may think that the likelihood of a new device having a fault is low due to its young age, you would be right, the chances that you will need to call on the warranty in the first year or so are low.  However, every device will fail eventually, some sooner than others and usually it will happen at the most awkward time possible!

This is why we recommend keeping critical devices under warranty for their usable lifespan.  Warranties are simply a promise from the manufacturer that if the device fails within the defined period they will repair or replace the defective device within the time period stated in the warranty.  Warranties however don’t cover accidental/deliberate damage, failures due to the untended use of the device or software problems.

As a Terra partner, we deal with their warranties on a daily basis so we’ll go through a couple of their options and explain how they work.

On Site Service

The On Site Service warranties give you a response to a device failure on site.  This means you don’t have to be without the device while it is sent to the manufacturer for investigation and repair.  As Terra Partners, we can carry out the warranty work for our clients which is a big advantage for speed of response to a warranty issue.  Also, as we work within your network and setup your devices we have additional knowledge which can allow us to carry out the warranty work and our support service work in the same site visit reducing delays and down time for our clients.  We always recommend On Site Service options for PCs and Servers due to their business critical nature and the need for timely responses to issues seen with devices under warranty to ensure you can continue to concentrate on your core business, knowing your IT is covered and in good hands.

Pick Up and Return

The Pick Up and Return warranties are mainly offered with devices such as laptops and tablets, so the manufacturer covers and organises collection of the faulty devices and delivery of the repaired or replacement devices.  This warranty makes more sense for portable devices, due to their smaller nature and portability this means their construction can be more specific to their design and some repairs and parts replacements are better carried out by the manufacturer with the knowledge of how the casings and parts are all located and connected.  As Terra Partners we can help organise the collection and return of your device with Terra to ensure a timely response to your warranty call often providing a temp device for you to work with while repair is undertaken.

With all warranties, the period of cover will depend on what you purchase and can usually be extended up to a certain point in the devices lifetime.  If you are a client of ours with a warranty on a device, you will likely have had an email 2 months before the expiry date of your warranty to ask about extensions.  We manage this for our clients to ensure that your business critical devices are kept under warranty during their usable lifetime.  This way you don’t have to worry about missing the end date of your warranty of all your devices.  However, don’t worry if you think a device warranty may have lapsed some manufacturers offer the ability to reinstate the warranty for a small extra charge to cover the time without cover.

There can also be different levels of response times under a warranty, so for example it could be next business day or a 4 hour response 24×7.  This will depend on how critical the device is to your core business, for example your server would be highly recommended to have a quick response time as this will have a higher number of users relying on this device to carry out their work activities.  Whereas a PC or laptop may be enough to have a next business day response as you could potentially use another device while waiting for the warranty call.

In a previous post on how to improve the environmental impact of your IT we spoke about extending the life of your devices and one way of doing this and mitigating high repair costs which may mean it isn’t financially viable to repair and keep the existing device, is to keep them under warranty.  This way you can help to ensure you get 5 years or more out of the lifetime of your device, some servers are able to be extended up to 8 years thus reducing the need for new devices and the disposal of old IT equipment.

If you have any questions on PC/Server warranties or would like to talk to us about your approach to warranties on your devices please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team here at MJD.